Review of the absurd comedy's surprise comeback

The news, first reported last October, that Green Wing was to be revived as an audio series after 17 years came a very pleasant surprise. And fans of Channel 4’s surreal hospital comedy will not be disappointed with the result, which dropped without notice this week.

Obviously the lack of visuals is something of a loss, from the peculiar physical comedy to the flourishes of sped-up or slowed-down footage that made the original so stylistically distinctive.

But gathering such a starry cast together for the demands of a TV series would surely be a challenge of scheduling, let alone budget. You have an actual Oscar-winner, Olivia Colman, and she is but one of a super-talented ensemble that also includes Tamsin Greig, Michelle Gomez, Pippa Haywood, Stephen Mangan, Mark Heap, Karl Theobald and Julian Rhind-Tutt.

Despite the passage of time, we pick things up at East Hampton Hospital pretty much where we left them, although showrunner Victoria Pile and her writers have to do a few narrative gymnastics to make it so. But given the series always had the storytelling credibility of the most outrageous Mexican soap opera, bringing someone back from the dead is easy. 

It turns out Rhind-Tutt’s Mac had a ’sudden and miraculous recovery’ from his terminal illness, leading the still-juvenile anaesthetist Guy Secretan (Mangan) to treat him like a ghost no one else can see. 

For his part, Guy is now a TV doctor, reluctantly in therapy to come to terms with the fact he’s not quite so young as he once was, and full of regret that he allowed the apparently dying Mac to marry Caroline (Greig), their shared love interest who’s now back at the hospital as head of surgery.

Meanwhile, Joanna (Haywood) remains in prison for murder, vowing revenge on her ex-lover Dr Statham (Heap) for putting her there. Michelle Gomez’s staff liaison officer Sue White remains as controlling and randy as ever and locked in a power struggle with Colman’s Harriet Schulenburg, head of HR, harassed mum and now a part-time crypto trader 

Got all that? 

All this plot might be overwhelming for those not au fait with the original, but story is only the icing on the chaotic cake. The heart of the comedy is these compellingly oddball characters and their eccentric interactions – zany yet somehow just about credible within the constraints of this topsy-turvy universe.

Heap remains a scene-stealer, pathetic, petty, jealous and intransigent – we first meet him staging a sit-in/dirty protest in the car park after being overlooked for the position of head of radiology – while Gomez is as deliciously batshit as ever.

But all the characters are essentially childish, acting on their most primal instincts, and forever winding each other up with their bickering. Yet they are also inappropriately sexy, all wanting to bed each other – in hock to that basic instinct again – yet possessing none of the adult social skills required for a subtle seduction.

The writing sparkles, with a fast-talking script bursting with great lines, led by the dumb, small-minded personalities of these hapless medics and administrators. And an impressive sound design goes some way to replicating the stylistic weirdness of the tell version.

It’s fantastic to have the old gang back together, and even if for those who don’t subscribe to Audible, the revival deserves to renew interest in the original, which is still streaming on Channel 4.

• Green Wing: Resuscitated in available to Audible subscribers – or to purchase for £7.99 for the series – here.

Review date: 1 May 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett